Atlantic Charter plus 60

As George W. Bush relaxes at his Texas ranch, it’s fitting to recall another executive August holiday that ended, not with saddle sores and smoldering barbecue pits, but with an eight-point document that later inspired the United Nations.

The president was Franklin D. Roosevelt; the place, the waters off Newfoundland, where, from Aug. 9-12, 1941, FDR and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill drew up a document that become known as the Atlantic Charter. Although not legally binding, the paper, postdated Aug. 14, 1941, nonetheless made a bold statement in the midst of war, with its vision of a world of free trade, self-governed nations and military disarmament.

“Unlike the current White House press corps covering the goings-on in Crawford, Texas, there were no reporters at the Atlantic Conference,” explained Robert Swanson, an attorney from Massapequa Park, N.Y., who brought today’s 60th anniversary of the event to the Bangor Daily News’ attention. Swanson, whose father, Harold Swanson, later served on the USS Augusta, the warship that took FDR to the conference, was a consultant to a forthcoming video documentary on that topic.

Robert Swanson said Roosevelt boarded the Augusta on Aug. 5 under cover of darkness in Vineyard Sound, Mass., leaving behind a smiling, cigarette-smoking body double to sail through the Cape Cod Canal in the presidential yacht Potomac. FDR’s top-secret rendezvous with Mr. Churchill, their first of many cordial meetings, was fraught with danger, resulting from deadly German U-boat activity in the North Atlantic.

Not until Aug. 16, after the prime minister had returned safely to Britain and the president was back onboard the Potomac off the mid-Maine coast, were the details of the meeting made known at a 20-minute yachtside press conference in Rockland. A couple dozen reporters jammed on board the Potomac to hear FDR outline the charter. He said, with some anxiety, that Russia had not been asked to subscribe to the document, but indicated that it soon would be.

Memories of the Atlantic Conference after 60 years are tainted by how far the world must go to realize the two leaders’ dream. On a tragic note, the HMS Prince of Wales, the battleship that ferried Churchill to Newfoundland, was bombed in the South China Sea on Dec. 10, 1941; half of the sailors who witnessed the document’s signing were lost.

On the light side is this anecdote, set in South Brooksville. As Roosevelt was cruising up the Maine coast en route to the conference, he recalled from his sailing days at Campobello, New Brunswick, a taciturn storekeeper named Ray Gray who sold sumptuous hand-dipped ice cream made from fresh peaches and thick cream. Just the ticket, he thought, to please our British allies.

President Roosevelt might have been crestfallen, or perhaps doubled over with laughter, when a detachment of sailors returned with the news that Gray wasn’t serving the delicacy just now.

“Ain’t got no peach ice cream,” Mr. Gray is said to have barked at the sailors. “Cream and peaches all goin’ overseas. Don’t you know there’s a war on? And furthermore, go back and tell that darn fool so! He made the law, didn’t he?”

Ray Gray isn’t mentioned on Robert Swanson’s Atlantic Charter Web site, but nearly everything else about the event is. The link to the site is http://www.internet-esq.com/ussaugusta.